Average US Hedge Fund Advantage Narrows in
April

The Average US Hedge Fund still outperformed major US
stock indexes on a year-to-date basis, gaining 1.4% net.
The Average Offshore Hedge Fund has gained 2.2% net in
2001. The Average Offshore Hedge Fund gained 1.8% net
in April.

For the month, the NASDAQ gained 15%, erasing March’s
slump while the Dow closed 8.67% higher and the S&P 500
gained 7.68%. Year to date through April 30 the Dow
is 0.48% lower, while the S&P 500 is lower by 5.36% and
the NASDAQ is still 14.34% lower than it began the
year.

Hedge Edged

Hedge funds lagged the stock indices due to the hedges
in their portfolios, including large cash positions,
options and short positions. CEO Steven Lonsdorf
noted that in addition, many hedge fund managers, wary of
chasing another fool’s rally, chose to remain strongly
hedged throughout the month.

For April, the best performing strategies were Offshore
Market Timing, US Value, and Offshore Aggressive Growth,
which had net returns of 6.4%, 5.1% and 5.0%,
respectively. Year-to-date US Value Hedge Funds have
posted the best net return of 6.8%, while Offshore Market
Neutral-Arbitrage and US Distressed Securities have
returned 5.5% and 5.4%, respectively.

Global Results

On a global basis Aggressive Growth managers fared best
in April with a 4.3% net gain, the category’s best
performance since last August. The stock market
turnaround was bad news for the short seller category,
which tumbled 9.5%, on average.

Those results are a marked contrast from year-to-date
performance for the two categories, with Aggressive Growth
down 7.1%, and Short Sellers up 4.1%, on average.

Data from Van Hedge Fund Advisors is based on
information received (and not audited or independently
verified) from the hedge funds in its databases and may not
be representative of all hedge funds. Hedge
fund returns are net of fees and performance allocations.
The April Index was created using a sample of 824
funds.